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It's pretty sad how this was supposed to be such a bad cut that it would keep it from happening
bring it on
It's pretty sad how this was supposed to be such a bad cut that it would keep it from happening
is the GOP required to accede to Obama's position?
seems to me neither side is bargaining in good faith, unless posing for the camera and spinning the blame game to reporters somehow count.
Didn't they already put through some tax increases? I seem to remember something of the sort happening on December 31st or something.
yes, minuscule tax increases, not anywhere near the $Ts they are demanding now in medicare/SS/etc cuts for the 47%. Completely out of balance.
Great to see how cutting govt funding will throw 100Ks out of work and crater the weak recovery, proving AUSTERITY in the Banksters Great Depression is a horrible, sociopathic strategy.
And private enterprise will not pick up the slack, will not grow due to sequestration, will disprove definitively the fundamental VRWC bull that cutting govt will cause the economy to grow.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 02-25-2013 at 11:41 AM.
The Great Sequester Lie
n a column on the budget, to maintain credibility with Beltway elites, I am supposed to claim the impasse is both parties' fault. It isn't. The conventional wisdom is that Republicans won't support any more tax increases and Democrats won't support any more spending cuts. That's half right.
House Democrats have proposed some sensible spending cuts: like doing away with the billions we spend subsidizing oil companies. With gas nearing $4 a gallon, does anyone really want to send taxpayers' money to the welfare queens of ExxonMobil? House Dems would also enact the Buffett rule (I prefer "Romney rule"), ending the obscenity in the tax code that lets hedge-fund managers pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries.
Not to be outdone, Senate Democrats have proposed $110 billion in spending cuts and tax increases: again, reducing oil subsidies (though not as much as the House Dems), ending the deduction businesses take for moving jobs overseas and trimming the defense budget and farm subsidies.
Finally, the White House boasts of having eliminated 77 government programs, including 16 at the Department of Education, 10 at Health and Human Services, and 4 at Labor. The president's budget calls for $30 billion in cuts to farm programs and $25 billion in savings from the post office.
The Republicans, for their part, did allow the Bush tax cuts to expire on income over $450,000, but they seem to have dug in their heels on the Romney rule and oil subsidies. They are blaming President Obama's "failed leadership" for the sequester and arguing that it was the White House that first proposed the gun-to-the-head approach. As the kids say, whatevs. The Democrats have come to the table with spending cuts. Will the Republicans join them and support some tax increases? Um, no. "Just last month," House Speaker John Boehner said, "The president got his higher taxes on the wealthy, and he's already back for more." True. But there is still some very low-hanging fruit on the revenue side. Republicans ought to at least embrace the Romney rule-if for no other reason than to punish Mitt for running such a lame campaign.
Meanwhile, some congressional Republicans are taking a break from complaining about government spending to complain about the lack of government spending. As Politico has reported, Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker is worried about cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins is fretting over potential job losses at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and John McCain has continued his longstanding opposition to a sequester, bringing it home by telling his fellow Arizonans, "They make the Apache helicopter in Mesa, Arizona. If they cut back, it would have to be affected there."
I would take it further. The new Tea Party senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, says, "I think we have to be prepared to go so far as to shut the government down if we don't get some serious policies to stop the out-of-control spending to tackle the debt." OK, let's start by shutting down federal spending in Texas. Federal funds account for 32 percent of the Lone Star State's budget. Oh, and how about Fort Hood? At 340 square miles, it is the biggest Army base in the free world and the largest single employer in Texas. All that federal spending must be sapping the souls of my fellow Texans. So let's move Fort Hood to, oh, say, Nevada. Sen. Harry Reid actually believes in federal investments, and the Nevada desert might provide good terrain for Fort Hood's tanks.
This could be fun. Oklahoma so hates Obama's big spending that every single county in the state voted for Mitt Romney. Oklahoma has twice the percentage of federal employees than the U.S. average, and Okies get $1.35 back from Washington for each dollar they pay in taxes. So close the massive FAA center in Oklahoma City. Move it to Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco district, where they love big government.
Two years ago I made a similar argument about Kentucky, calling on Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul to put the Bluegrass State in detox for its addiction to local pork. No such luck. But perhaps the principle can apply to the sequester: enforce it only in states whose elected representatives won't support the taxes needed to fund the spending they want.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/02/25/begala-the-great-sequester-lie.html
is Barry required to accede to Repugs ty austerity cuts for the 47% with no cuts for the 1%, oilcos, etc, etc?
What happened two month ago? Remind me...
I know I have less take home. Is that a mirage?
does anybody know where they keep coming up with different names for this ?
Barry caved and raised income rate on 400K bracket, instead of 200K.
He didn't cave, he compromised. In fact the reality was substantially closer to his number than to the republicans' number.
Why Everything Republicans Are Saying About The Sequester Is Wrong
1) We need spending cuts to get the economy going. The GOP claims that government spending is out of control and reason that reducing spending would spur greater economic growth. But government expenditures have grown at its slowest pace since the Eisenhower administration under President Obama and the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office show that the nation’s deficits have shrunk by trillions of dollars, and the debt is close to being stabilized as a percentage of the economy. Austerity measures have dragged down economic growth in Europe and some economists argue that sequestration won’t actually lead to substantial shrinking of the deficit, since fiscal contraction caused by sequestration is likely to slow economic growth, reducing tax revenue and preventing meaningful deficit reduction.
2) Agencies need more flexibility to avoid cuts in crucial services. After backing sequestration mechanism — the across-the-board cuts that were designed to force lawmakers to reach a comprehensive deal to reduce the deficit with additional revenue and spending reductions — Republicans are now considering legislation that would leave President Obama and federal agencies with the responsibility of carving out waste and unnecessary spending while preserving critical government services. In reality, the problem isn’t one of authority. Programs will see their budgets cut by anywhere between 2 and 10 percent and most will be unable to salvage services and only target inefficiencies. The Republican replacement is just another effort to implement spending reductions without also increasing revenues.
3) The federal spending will still be higher next year. This claim is technically true, but only because the sequester target the growth of government programs: they will grow at a slower pace as a result of the spending reductions. This is simply how federal budgeting works. The sequester will reduce spending as percentage of the economy, lowering discretionary spending to historic lows.
4) These are very modest cuts. The reductions may not mean much for wealthy Congressman, but states will lose funding for education, job training, health care, and a plethora of other services, jeopardizing assistance for low-income and middle class families alike and threatening the economic recovery. The cuts will also undermine everything from border security to the screening of containers. Estimates show that the sequester would reduce 2013 gross domestic product (GDP) growth by half a percentage point, and would cost the economy close to one million jobs in the next two years.
5) Democrats have rejected the GOP’s sequester replacement bills. Republicans in the House passed a sequester replacement bill in the last Congress that doesn’t raise any new revenue and includes cuts in domestic programs like food stamps, Medicaid, and the social services block grant (which, among other things, funds Meals on Wheels). The GOP has not introduced a replacement bill in this current Congress and refuses to consider the Democrats’ balanced approach of higher revenues and more spending cuts.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/26/1638861/why-everything-republicans-are-saying-about-the-sequester-is-wrong/
Fear, intimidation, lies is how the Repugs/VRWC rolls
GOP Senator: Boehner Would Lose Speakership If He Agreed to Raise Taxes
A conservative senator is warning House Speaker John Boehner that he could lose his speakership if he agrees to hike taxes as part of a deal to replace the sequester.
“I don’t quite honestly believe that Speaker Boehner would be speaker if that happens,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told Fox News in a report that aired Monday. “I think he would lose his speakership. That’d would be my own personal opinion.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/0...ost-88079.html
Lakoff: Why Extreme Conservatives Like the Sequester
But pointing out Republican-caused harms to millions of people — many of them Republicans — does not sway the ultra-right. Why? Democratic pundits say that Republicans want to hurt the president, to show government doesn’t work by making it not work, and to protect “special interests” from higher taxes. All true. But there is an additional and deeper reason. Ultra-conservatives believe that the sequester is moral, that it is the right thing to do.
Progressives tend to believe that democracy is based on citizens caring for their fellow citizens through what the government provides for all citizens — public infrastructure, public safety, public education, public health, publicly-sponsored research, public forms of recreation and culture, publicly-guaranteed safety nets for those who need them, and so on. In short, progressives believe that the private depends on the public, that without those public provisions Americans cannot be free to live reasonable lives and to thrive in private business. They believe that those who make more from public provisions should pay more to maintain them.
Ultra-conservatives don’t believe this. They believe that Democracy gives them the liberty to seek their own self-interests by exercising personal responsibility, without having responsibility for anyone else or anyone else having responsibility for them. They take this as a matter of morality. They see the social responsibility to provide for the common good as an immoral imposition on their liberty.
Their moral sense requires that they do all they can to make the government fail in providing for the common good. Their idea of liberty is maximal personal responsibility, which they see as maximal privatization — and profitization — of all that we do for each other together, jointly as a unified nation.
They also believe that if people are hurt by government failure, it is their own fault for being “on the take” instead of providing for themselves. People who depend on public provisions should suffer. They should have rely on themselves alone — learn personal responsibility, just as Romney said in his 47 percent speech. In the long run, they believe, the country will be better off if everyone has to depend on personal responsibility alone.
Moreover, ultra-conservatives do not see all the ways in which they, and other ultra-conservatives, rely all day every day on what other Americans have supplied for them. They actually believe that they built it all by themselves.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/lako...ives-sequester
At least some respected people on the left are calling out the bull .
BOB WOODWARD, WASHINGTON POST: I'm not sure the White House understands exactly what happened in all of these negotiations at the end of 2011 with the sequester and the super committee and God knows what because they were really on the sidelines. But I think it's possible to take one example here where President Obama came out and acknowledged that we are not sending the aircraft carrier Truman to the Persian Gulf because of this budget agreement.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, CO-HOST: Right.
WOODWARD: Joe, I mean, this will resonate with you, I think. Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying, “Oh, by the way, I can't do this because of some budget do ent,” or George W. Bush saying, “You know, I'm not going to invade Iraq because I can't get the aircraft carriers I need,” or even Bill Clinton saying, “You know, I'm not going to attack Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters” as he did when Clinton was president “because of some budget do ent?” Under the Cons ution, the president is Commander-in-Chief and employs the force. And so we now have the president going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement, “I can't do what I need to do to protect the country.” That's a kind of madness that I haven't seen in a long time.
At least some respected people on the left are calling out the bull .
BOB WOODWARD, WASHINGTON POST: I'm not sure the White House understands exactly what happened in all of these negotiations at the end of 2011 with the sequester and the super committee and God knows what because they were really on the sidelines. But I think it's possible to take one example here where President Obama came out and acknowledged that we are not sending the aircraft carrier Truman to the Persian Gulf because of this budget agreement.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, CO-HOST: Right.
WOODWARD: Joe, I mean, this will resonate with you, I think. Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying, “Oh, by the way, I can't do this because of some budget do ent,” or George W. Bush saying, “You know, I'm not going to invade Iraq because I can't get the aircraft carriers I need,” or even Bill Clinton saying, “You know, I'm not going to attack Saddam Hussein’s intelligence headquarters” as he did when Clinton was president “because of some budget do ent?” Under the Cons ution, the president is Commander-in-Chief and employs the force. And so we now have the president going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement, “I can't do what I need to do to protect the country.” That's a kind of madness that I haven't seen in a long time.
"madness that I haven't seen in a long time."
The madness is on the tea bag sucking Repug extremists who absolutely refuse to raise revenue with taxes.
and the bull is in Woodward's totally unrelated, trolling examples of Presidential actions
crisis du jour
slowly,with a recovering economy and growing tax base the deficit will decline IT ALWAYS DOES.
Talking about the deficit SO MUCH is a way the rich people can trick the middle class into saving them(the rich people) from paying more taxes......Note to middle class.....DON'T FALL FOR IT.
Honest question: So all these "cuts" are based on how much money it will cost right? For instance part of our budget includes all the GWOT funding for two wars because Congress hasn't disallowed spending on it? Therefore would this just be less of a increase in our annual budget and not a real cut?
Bucking Responsibility: GOP’s History Of Demanding Obama Identify The Spending Cuts They’d Support
the GOP has often turned to demanding spending cuts without actually naming specific cuts they want, as they attempt to extract painful cuts without taking any of the blame:
1. BUSH TAX CUTS: In 2010, when Republicans wanted to extend the Bush tax cuts, they refused to name actual spending cuts they would support to offset the $4 trillion cost. Instead, Republican lawmakers only detailed programs that were off-limits and said cuts would have to be across-the-board.
2. FISCAL CLIFF: During negotiations to avert the so-called “fiscal cliff” at the end of 2012, Republicans again struggled to specify exactly how they would cut spending. GOP Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, asked to detail specific spending cuts, could only offer that the GOP was “looking at the spending” and “the growth in government.” The House GOP’s plan to avoid sequestration that time around ultimately made deeper cuts to popular programs so that they could protect the defense budget.
3. DEBT CEILING: Republicans again demanded spending cuts to increase the nation’s borrowing limit last month, and again they had a hard time saying exactly what spending cuts they wanted. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) offered the most honest response yet, saying the GOP couldn’t offer specifics because that would be unpopular. “[A]s soon as a specific is put out there, it is attacked by the spending piranhas on the other side,” King said, ignoring that the “spending piranhas” also include the American people.
4. EN LEMENTS: Throughout these budget battles, Republicans have blasted Obama for not putting forward plans to cut en lement programs like Medicare and Social Security, ignoring that Obama’s health care law cut Medicare (a fact the GOP was eager to remind Americans of during the November election). But even as Democrats made it clear that they would not support further cuts to en lements, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) held a press conference to beg them to take the lead. Boehner’s party, perhaps learning from the backlash it has faced when it offered plans to cut Medicare in the past, refused to specify how, or by how much, it would cut en lement programs.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...ame-specifics/
Obvious chicken Repug strategy: Demand that only the Dems name the cuts, then the Repugs blame Dems for the cuts when the invevitable backlash arrives.
Woodward is "extreme left"because he took down your beloved criminal, nasty Tricky Nixon and led to imprisoning 40 lawyers in Nixon's Exec?
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